Words Left Unwritten
by Maddie
Summary: Another night of waiting as one team member fights for life. Perhaps, for Carson Beckett it's the last fight. one shot


Prompt: This was written the Farewell Atlantis Ficathon on LJ. My prompt was to write some "angsty h/c. And the boys. And Carson" with no OC's, ships or Keller. Well, this is actually the second attempt to fill that order. The first had more of "the boys". Then I let Carson in to play and the next thing I know he took over. I really didn't think of Carson as the pushy type, but you never know.

Summary: Takes place some time late in the second season. Another injury, another late night in the infirmary.

Disclaimer: The characters and settings belong to someone else. I'm just borrowing them for my plot.

**Words Left Unwritten**

Carson Beckett scrubbed his gritty eyes with the back of one hand, exhausted, but unable to sleep and unwilling to leave his patient who clung so desperately to the thinnest thread of life. The dimly lit infirmary was silent, except for the soft beep of monitors and the hiss of oxygen equipment. The blood had been scoured away, the instruments sterilized, the patient swaddled in bandages, wired to monitors and pumped full of meds.

He spent far too many nights like this, watching, waiting, and praying he had done everything he could and that he had done it all correctly. Everyone believed he was a miracle worker, the best physician in the Pegasus galaxy, Carson-who-can-heal-all-ills. But sometimes, when he had worked whatever magic he could, he was left feeling as helpless as a first year med student.

"Only time will tell," he had told Sheppard's teammates when they asked to be apprised of his condition and prognosis. What a saccharine, worn out, clichéd bit of nonsense.

When all was said and done, and the waiting was all that was left, he seriously questioned his desire to stay here in Atlantis. He was tired of mending broken bodies that should not have been broken, tired of pulling first one then another desperate treatment from his shrinking bag of tricks.

All too often the same bodies needed him. How many more times could they be damaged and still be healed. It was a question he did not want to answer, because he had made the one mistake no physician should ever make. He had come to call his patients friends and, yes, thought of them as family. If this time, or the next, his miracle cure was not miraculous, he would always ask if he had done the right thing, if his friendship had clouded his reason and his judgment.

On the desk in front of him was a single sheet of paper, pristine and white. In his hand he held a pen, a gift from his mother when he had graduated from medical school. "To use for scribbling all those prescriptions no one but you will be able to read," she had said. He had done very little of that in the past two years. All the tasks they would need to perform could be done on computers, and laptops. McKay would chide him whenever he wrote letters that could never be delivered.

But some thoughts needed the solidity of words on paper, ideas made tangible to be held in one's hands. Like the words that said you had watched enough good people suffer, and too many die, and dabbled with research that questioned your most basic ethics. Words that said, maybe it was time to return to writing prescriptions no one but he could read. Words that said it might be time to resign as CMO of Atlantis and request re-assignment to Earth.

As he sat staring at the blank sheet he heard the soft thud of rubber on the cold ceramic floor, followed by a shuffling step, a thud and a step. Carson knew who it was without turning. The same visitor he'd had three times since he had sent his staff to get some rest.

"Yes, Rodney?" he said without turning. "If its pain medication you're after, you'll have to wait another hour."

The thunk-shuffle-step sound stopped. Carson heard a soft sigh and swiveled his chair to face McKay.

Rodney was barely standing, one arm in a cast and held close to his body by a sling, the other gripping the handle of an aluminum crutch so tightly his knuckles were white and his arm shook with the effort. He leaned heavily on the crutch; his right thigh was swathed in a thick bandage, his face anxious, as though he didn't know why he was here again, and, like Carson, knew of no other place to go. Instead of his usual self-assured and self-important bravura, Carson saw a disheveled and deeply disturbed Rodney McKay.

"I told you bed rest, Rodney," Carson said softly. "I meant bed rest, not hobbling around my infirmary."

"I…" McKay, for once, seemed at a loss for words.

He stood and walked to McKay, taking him gently by the shoulders. "To bed."

"No," McKay answered. His jaw was set, his lips a thin determined line. "It was my fault. I should be in that bed not him."

Carson resisted the urge to disagree. That wasn't what McKay needed right now. "Perhaps, you're right," he said.

McKay looked startled. He gulped, and his face paled even more. "You agree…"

"It doesn't matter what I think, Rodney. Only what you think. If you want to wallow in guilt, because you are only slightly injured while Colonel Sheppard is in serious condition, then no amount of arguing on my part will change your mind." The words had come out more sharply than he had intended. For a moment he regretted what he had said.

A look of naked hurt ghosted across McKay's face, before he clamped his mouth shut and adopted the classic, stubborn, little-boy, you-can't-hurt-me look, Carson had come to expect. For all his genius, McKay was in many ways emotionally still a child, especially when his position as the center of his universe was challenged. Or when someone he cared about 'took a bullet' to protect him.

"Yes, maybe it should have been you, Rodney," Carson said in a gentler tone, "but you and I both know that will never happen, if Colonel Sheppard is anywhere near.'

"He keeps throwing himself in harm's way."

Carson nodded. "Yes. But that's his job."

"He's as valuable as I am." Rodney suddenly seemed flustered by his own selfless admission.

Equally surprised by the comment, Carson raised an eyebrow.

"I mean, he has the gene. We can't risk loosing him."

"Others have the gene now, Rodney. I don't think Colonel Sheppard makes the distinction between the value of a person and the value of a person's position. What counts for him is the value of a life. Besides, by now, don't you think it's fair to assume he thinks of you as a friend? And he does protect his friends."

Rodney continued to stand in silence, swaying slightly. Carson took him more firmly by the shoulders. "All right," he said. "I will let you stay but only if you sit. Quietly."

Rodney nodded, some of the worry leaving his face. Carson arranged a chair next to Sheppard's bed and helped Rodney ease himself into it, then propped his injured leg on a second chair. He had barely settled McKay when he heard another soft step behind him. Turning, he saw Ronon and Teyla. Somehow he was not surprised. He nodded his permission and they found two additional chairs, joining Rodney in his silent vigil.

Carson went back to his desk and sat heavily in his own chair. This same scene had played out all too often in the past two years. Opening the center drawer of his desk, he slid the still unmarked paper back inside, reverently laying the pen beside it. There was a time and place for everything and, he decided, this was not the time to walk away from friends. The resignation he had been so determined to tender now seemed superfluous. He was needed here. Not because he was the most brilliant doctor in the galaxy, he knew damn well he was not, but because these people believed in him. Their belief in his skill went a long way towards helping them heal, and maybe that's what gave him the edge and made the miracles work.

(end)


End file.
